Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)(24)

Disappointed and relieved, Ariel pushed the door open with her back and shoulders the way she had seen other servants do, so she didn’t need to use her tray-encumbered hands. And once she was in…

She sighed in relief.

She had never been in Eric’s room; humans had very odd notions of appropriate behavior. But if she had to guess, this was still Eric’s room—and only Eric’s room. No girly or princess-y things at all.

There was a bookshelf stuffed with maps and scrolls and folios of music. There was a drum from a foreign land. There was a portrait of the prince and a much younger Max, all smiles and sunlight. There were piles of arcane metal apparatus; tubes with thick glass lenses, pyramids with pendulums hanging from the apex of delicate golden crosspieces, things that were almost recognizable as rulers. There were several toy—model—ships.

There was a soft, puffy pillow on the floor that was obviously for the dog, but there was dog hair all over the foot of the bed.

There was a heavy desk under a small window, buried under endless sheets of music paper, inkwells, pens.

There wasn’t a single hint of anyone besides Eric in the room. Nothing of a tentacled sea witch with questionable taste in decor, nor of a human princess with human-princess belongings. There was nothing soft, brightly colored, pastel, glittery, flowery—no random scarf tossed over the back of the bed, no velvet or silk shoe kicked halfway under it. Nothing that wasn’t shipshape, masculine, and Eric-y.

Ariel wanted to stay and poke through things, try to get a glimpse of the boy she had loved. But her time was limited.

There was a doorway that connected his bedroom to an adjacent one. She tiptoed in. This was Vanessa’s room.

The royal couple was living side by side. Not together.

Not together.

Ariel didn’t really want to unpack her feelings around this, but she couldn’t help picking at them, like taking a stick and seeing what was in a crevasse of dead coral. Surely she hadn’t hoped for Eric to stay…single? After all these years? To remain as he was in her memory?

Surely she couldn’t blame him for having any feelings for Vanessa. The witch had cast a mighty spell on him. It wouldn’t be his fault if he did everything she said, fawned over her, slept in the same room as she.

None of these logical thoughts explained away the joy that she felt. Somehow Eric had managed to keep a portion of himself separate from his beglamoured wife; somehow he knew something wasn’t quite right.

Ariel allowed herself one tiny, triumphant pull of her lips into the ghost of a smile, then stepped into what was very obviously Vanessa’s domestic demesne.

There was a ridiculous bed shaped like a scallop, or maybe a deep-sea clam. The ridges were wide and deep but far too precise and symmetrical for either creature. Its plaster shell was open, so the bed was in what would have been the bottom half of the mollusk; the top half stood upright as a decorative backdrop hung with golden lanterns and convenient little shelves for knickknacks. The whole thing was upholstered in purple silk the color of a deadly Portuguese man-o’-war.

The rest of the room, crowded by the bed though it was, was further filled with mismatched and disturbing treasures. There were statues of twisted and tortured heroes, their faces distorted in agony. Covering one entire wall was a painting of squiggly, squirming humans in some sort of fiery cavern. There was pain on their faces but glee on the visage of the one who was tormenting them—he was red and bearded and had a trident like Triton’s.

Triton himself didn’t appear to be anywhere obvious in the room. Ariel moved farther in, picking up and putting down the disgusting little pieces of bric-a-brac. Among all the horror was an ironically delicate vanity covered in mother-of-pearl—and, intriguingly, all manner of exquisite little glass bottles. Scents from the east, oils from the west, attar of roses, nut butter, extract of myrrh, sandalwood decoctions, jasmine hydrosols…Everything to make someone smell exquisite.

Or to mask whatever it was she really smelled like, Ariel thought wryly.

Or were the oils and butters for more medicinal reasons—for the cecaelia’s skin? Ariel found herself looking at her own hands, rubbing them over each other lightly. Last time she had only been in the Dry World for a few days. Was it—literally—drying? Was it difficult, or painful, for creatures from the sea to remain for months battered by void and air, despite their magic?

Ariel shivered. Magic didn’t make everything simpler. Crossing the thresholds of worlds was no minor thing.

But none of the bottles looked like it contained a polyp.

Father? she asked silently. Where are you?

Footsteps rang in the hallway outside.

Frozen, Ariel waited for them to pass.

But they didn’t. They came in…to Eric’s apartment.

The mermaid looked around. If whoever came in knew that Vanessa didn’t like heels of bread or drink wine at that time of day…the jig was up.

The intruder continued to pad around maddeningly. There were accompanying sounds of things being lifted, patted, folded. A maid, straightening or cleaning…Ursula’s room would be next.

What should she do?

What would she do if she were the old Ariel and a shark were hunting her?

Without a second thought, the Queen of the Sea folded herself down as small as possible and hunkered down under the vanity.

Less than a second later the maid came into the doorway.